Why I’m a Republican

I first became a Republican for two primary reasons – my mom and Jimmy Carter. When I was growing up, Richard Nixon was president. In my mom’s eyes, Richard Nixon was the very embodiment of evil. Everything bad that happened was his fault [sound familiar?]– just ask my mom, she would tell you. Every time his face appeared on TV she would start screaming at it. If she was alive today she would be doing the same thing about George W. Bush. My dad would sometimes join in the scream fest, which was interesting considering my dad didn’t say much about anything to anybody. Yes – Richard Nixon was a crook, but my parents didn’t have to make a nightly production out of it. Then came Jimmy Carter, an honest man from the South. My parents thought he had hung the Moon. They thought of him the same way many people think of Barack Obama today. In my house, Jimmy Carter was the Second Coming.

I was just a kid at the time, but I do know that while Jimmy Carter was president, things went to hell in a hurry. Prices for everything went through the roof; interest rates were at levels that until then only loan sharks charged, the Communists were on the march all over Africa, Asia, and Latin America. The Ayatollah’s minions took 52 hostages at our embassy in Iran and there wasn’t a damn thing we could do about it. The Russians invaded Afghanistan and all Jimmy Carter could do was to boycott the Olympics. Our military fell apart, resulting in the “hollow force”. All of these things happened and instead of coming up with solutions, Carter attributed all the bad things happening to a “crisis in confidence” in the American people. The American people had confidence, just not in Jimmy Carter. Maybe that’s why he lost his re-election bid by over 400 electoral votes. Toward the end of Jimmy Carter’s term I was getting old enough to understand what was going on in world events, and I didn’t like what I was seeing. What I saw was Jimmy Carter planting a big wet one on Leonid Brezhnev’s cheek. Democrats in general and Jimmy Carter in particular were quick to take the Russians’ word on everything. To them, words spoke louder than actions. It was at this time that the “blame America first” crowd took over the Democratic Party. This same attitude stills control the Democratic Party today. It was only the invasion of Afghanistan that made the scales fall from their eyes. But that wake-up call was not to last for very long. There are many more reasons why I am a Republican.

The next time a Democrat was in charge it was Bill Clinton. In 1992, I had made up my mind that I wasn’t going to vote for George Bush because he blamed the LA riots on the Great Society. Instead of trying to fix the problem, Bush blamed a president [LBJ] who had been dead for almost 20 years. So I gave Clinton a look. He promised a middle-class tax cut, and he promised he would “end welfare as we know it.” Then came the issue of his avoiding service in Vietnam. I didn’t care so much that he avoided service [others of his generation did – Dick Cheney comes to mind], but in doing so he claimed his “loathing of the military.” As a member of the Air Force at that time, I wasn’t particularly keen on being loathed by anybody, especially someone who was going to be my next Commander-in-Chief. For that, Clinton lost my vote. I didn’t get my middle-class tax cut until George W. Bush became president. Clinton did fulfill his promise on welfare, but only during his re-election campaign in 1996 after he had twice vetoed the same welfare bill the Republican-controlled Congress sent him.

While the Soviet threat receded into history and the Cold War ended, another threat loomed on the horizon: Islamo-fascist terrorism. Bill Clinton and the Democrats did next to nothing about terrorism. I will credit the Clinton Administration in foiling the Millennium Plot in 2000. Other than that, however, Clinton’s anti-terrorism record is lacking. Muslim terrorists tried to blow up the World Trade Center in 1993. There was no response from Clinton. He never even visited the World Trade Center after the incident. Terrorists blew up the Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 of my fellow brothers-in-arms. Clinton’s response? Nothing. The FBI Director, Louis Freeh, had to call Clinton’s predecessor, George Bush, to talk to the Saudis to get them to cooperate with the investigation. I guess Bill was too busy with Monica then. Al Qaeda blew up our embassies in Tanzania and Kenya and 1998. Clinton’s response was to lob a few cruise missiles at abandoned Al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan and a Sudanese pharmaceutical factory. Al Qaeda attacked and nearly sank the USS Cole in Yemen in October 2000. Seventeen sailors died in the attack. Clinton’s response? Nothing. The Clinton Administration actively prohibited US law enforcement and intelligence agencies from sharing information. This was the now-infamous “Gorelick Wall” that was exposed during the 9/11 Commission hearings. Are these the efforts of a man who claimed after he left office that he worked as hard as he could to stop terrorism? If this was his best effort, I shudder to think what his worst effort would have been like.

Democrats are still in denial about the “war on terrorism.” They have forgotten that Muslim terrorists killed 3,000 of our people on 9/11. They think the best way to deal with terrorists is to arrest them and put them on trial. I disagree – the best way to deal with them is to kill them and eliminate them. They have no problem with Islamo-fascists who would like nothing better than to kill us and build a bridge back to the seventh century. They and their fellow travelers at the ACLU care more about the rights of terrorists than they do about keeping us safe. Like the Clintonian holiday from history in the 1990s, today’s Democrats would rather close their eyes and wish the whole terrorism thing would just “go away.” They would bring a knife to a gunfight.

Democrats want to raise your taxes on gasoline. Gas prices are hovering around $4/gallon, but the Democrats think you aren’t paying enough. The Messiah isn’t sad about today’s gas prices. The only thing that saddens him is that the price hike wasn’t “gradual enough.” The Democrats don’t want to drill for more oil. They, who claim to be champions of democracy, won't even allow a vote in Congress on the issue. They say that it would take at least ten years for any oil to get to market. They said that ten years ago, too. Just think about how much oil would be on the market today if we were allowed to drill offshore ten years ago. It could be a lot, it could be a little, but at least there would be more oil available. They don’t want nuclear power. They say they want wind power, but just ask the Kennedys about the proposed windmill farm off Hyannis Port [here’s a clue – they don’t like the idea because it would intrude upon their sailing and spoil their view]. They don’t want coal, something that we have in abundance. Harry Reid says “it makes us sick.” Hey Harry, ever hear of clean-burning coal? I thought not.

I’m all for finding cleaner alternative sources of energy, but you have to have something in hand already before you get there. I would dearly love to put Hugo Chavez and the rest of OPEC out of business. It sickens me that this country is so dependent on the kindness of despots in order for our economy to thrive. The Democrats would rather have everyone suffer the pain and agony of $8/gallon gas first. They think if it’s good for the Europeans, it should be good for us. The fallacy of that argument is that Europe has a very good public transportation system, while we do not. That needs to be fixed. They like biofuels. Too bad it makes the price of food go up. They don’t want shale oil. Colorado Senator Ken Salazar thinks it’s a big land grab by oil companies, justifying his remarks by saying the technology isn’t ready to extract oil from shale. To give Jimmy Carter his due in SOMETHING, that was an idea he had in the 1970s. We need to get at as many sources of energy that we can right now AND invest in future technologies to be able to ween ourselves off of oil. It's not an either/or situation - we have to do both.

The Democrats think we should unilaterally cripple our economy in order to adhere to the Kyoto Protocol while China and India can do anything they want. They tell us to give up our cars and use mass transit or bicycles while they stick to their gas-guzzling SUVs. They think carbon dioxide is a pollutant, even though we exhale it every time we breathe. Plants, like those in the rainforests they claim they want to save, can’t live without it. They prefer to live in big mansions that soak up electricity like a sponge. They fly around in their private jets while the rest of us fly in coach or [gasp!] drive. They don’t prefer to lead by example. Their mantra is “do as I say, not as I do.” Ever hear the term “limousine liberal”?

Then there is "the nanny state." One of our Founding Fathers [I believe it was Thomas Jefferson] once said the government that governs the best governs the least. Today's Democratic Party does not subscribe to this notion. They believe government is the solution to all of society's ills. They don't believe in personal responsibility. They do not believe that people can take care of themselves. They believe that government can spend YOUR money more wisely than you. Queen Hillary was quoted a few years ago saying “we’re going to take things away from you on behalf of the common good.” I'm sorry, but did we win the Cold War against Communism [the root word of which is "common"] only to have it take root in our own society?

Democrats favor illegal immigration. What part of the word "illegal" do they not understand? They believe that illegal immigrants should get amnesty instead of being sent back to where they came from. They believe in spending YOUR money to provide government services to people who are in this country illegally.

I do not think the war in Iraq was a mistake, but I do think it was poorly planned and even more poorly executed. Democrats who oppose the Iraq War say that Saddam Hussein was contained, kept in a box, was not a threat to us. Serbia was not a threat to us either, yet we attacked them without UN approval like we did in Iraq. Do I think George Bush lied about getting us into Iraq? No, but I do think the Intelligence Community screwed the pooch big time in getting the WMD almost completely wrong. I say "almost" because over 500 metric tons of yellow-cake uranium were taken out of Iraq this month. What was Saddam Hussein going to do with that uranium? He could not power his country with it, that's for sure.

These are many of the reasons why I am a Republican.

For the record, I am not a religious zealot. I am not a racist, sexist bigot. I am pro-choice. I don’t care if gays are in the military. I don’t care if gays marry either. I do not want to get the government out of your pocketbook only for it to get into your bedroom. I also believe marijuana shouldn't be criminalized [in case you're wondering, I don't smoke it - never will]. A libertarian slant? Perhaps, but you definitely won't find any libertarians in the Democratic Party.